It has been seen in countless science fiction: a city where the LCD advertisements target themselves to your interests, where everything is wireless and automated, and knows your name, birthday, and pet\u2019s favorite dog food.\u00a0 Computers run the show and our existences have become, if not entirely digital, then at least inseparably so.\u00a0 Thanks to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s new Smart Cities Lab, this may not be a far off reality for the world.<\/p>\n
What makes a city a smart city?<\/strong><\/p>\n As defined by them, a \u201csmart city\u201d is dependent upon six areas of development:<\/p>\n The idea is to create a base grid that would operate via a set of programming and hardware that would remind you eerily of being physically inside an operating system.\u00a0 This \u201cSmartCityOS\u201d, we might call it, would plug into that city\u2019s grid, affecting each area of daily city living in order to automate processes and make more streamlined the experience of 21st<\/sup> century living.\u00a0 This grid would control large-scale items such as traffic flow, and more specific processes such as air conditioning and heating.<\/p>\n How far into the future are we talking here?<\/strong><\/p>\n Smart city technology is already being implemented in various areas across the globe. The highest concentration of work is currently in Asia, with a heavy focus on Hong Kong and Tokyo.\u00a0 There\u2019s also, naturally, lots of work being done in MIT\u2019s home turf of Massachusetts.\u00a0 We have already taken the first steps towards accomplishing this vision by beginning to embed intelligence into our day to day devices.<\/p>\n You go to a website and the ads that support that website seem to be tailored expressly for you.\u00a0 They are.\u00a0 Through your browsing habits and purchasing habits, the technology on these websites is able to bring you advertisements that are more statistically likely to encourage you to click on them, look at the advertiser\u2019s web page and, if the final goal is successful, get you to purchase a product or service from them.<\/p>\n Smart city technology has also been starting to pop up in the area of the cars we drive.\u00a0 A small chip embedded in the key of our cars stores all of our preferences, so that when you put the key into the ignition, the car automatically adjusts so that the seat is exactly how you prefer it, the heat or air conditioning is correct and all the mirrors are adjusted to just your height and position.\u00a0 There\u2019s no word yet on whether or not it will make your morning coffee for you exactly how you like it, but it\u2019s a good bet that someone is working on it somewhere.\u00a0 In any event, the potential for this technology might be highlighted by how much we already take for granted examples like these.<\/p>\n Looking into the future, then, imagine, entering a department store and the small chip in your store card that was read by the RFID scanner when you entered the door allows a recorded but realistic voice to greet you, \u201cGood morning Miss Smith!\u201d\u00a0 If you more cringe when you hear that than leap for joy, it\u2019s OK.\u00a0 We\u2019ll get to that below.<\/p>\n Why is this direction the one researchers are choosing?<\/strong><\/p>\n A big reason for this is ecological concerns.\u00a0 While so much in this field remains hotly debated, there are few at this point who don\u2019t agree that there are at least some resources that we are going to start running out of soon.\u00a0 Although significant effort is being put into moving us over to renewable energies, smart city technology lets us buy some more time by making more intelligent, efficient use of our current energy consumption.\u00a0 The more lifestyle functions that we can automate, the less raw material and manpower we wind up using.<\/p>\n At the same time, let\u2019s be honest and point out that a lot of it is also just good business sense, for all of the same reasons as listed above.\u00a0 While these are options being pursued by cities and other governmental structures, these bodies routinely contract out their services to private companies.\u00a0 These companies will get their bids more or less based on the types of efficiencies they can offer.\u00a0 Plus, remember that there are large-scale private institutions, such as malls and skyscrapers, which are so massive in their scope that they become miniature cities in themselves.\u00a0 They have the same incentive to penny-pinch, and the tiny benefits from this technology can add up quickly.<\/p>\n The uncertainty principle<\/strong><\/p>\n This is, naturally, something of a seismic societal shift.\u00a0 With it come the equally seismic societal problems.<\/p>\n Focusing first on logistics, the biggest of these is the fact that while this promises to save money, this is, to varying degrees, theoretical.\u00a0 The upgrade costs are not.\u00a0 There are going to be a lot of people and places that are going to need to see solid evidence that this is worth the investment before jumping in.\u00a0 This wouldn\u2019t be the first technology that promised to change the world.\u00a0 If it failed, it wouldn\u2019t be the first one of those to do that, either.<\/p>\n Related to that, then, is the fact that the upper limits of this technology\u2019s usefulness are unknown.\u00a0 We are familiar with seeing ads on web pages that attempt to market to us.\u00a0 We are also familiar with how laughably bad these can be.\u00a0 All forms of artificial intelligence have always had to wrestle against the fact that reality doesn\u2019t always lend itself well to being boxed into a set of numbers.\u00a0 Your car\u2019s settings may know what radio stations you prefer, but it\u2019s not going to necessarily be able to read your mind and know that just today you\u2019re really sick of Pearl Jam.\u00a0 It\u2019s unclear just how effective we can hope for this technology to get.<\/p>\n Then there is always the persistent problem of privacy and security.\u00a0 More data and more data systems means more opportunities for infiltration, with all of the crimes that come along with it.\u00a0 While this was a problem before, exactly how secure would you feel about the possibility of a city\u2019s electrical grid being in the hands of a fired city employee with a strong set of hacking skills and a grudge to bear?\u00a0 A less extreme example is the sharing of personal information to companies trying to market you to death.\u00a0 By the time that the 50th<\/sup> billboard you pass blasts your name on it, you just might prefer that someone shut off all the lights.<\/p>\n Future, ho!<\/strong><\/p>\n All of these problems notwithstanding, it is beginning to look like the smart city might be the way of the future.\u00a0 There may simply be too much momentum to stop this technology from finding its way into all aspects of our daily lives.<\/p>\n Some will react to this with the excitement that comes from years of anticipating it.\u00a0 Others will start to look for tents and teach themselves how to make fire with sticks.\u00a0 If there\u2019s one bit of advice we can issue to all parties, it\u2019s this: wait and see.\u00a0 This future may be close by, but it is still not yet written.<\/p>\n 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